Growing Up and Dying Young
by expletive deleted
Summary: Mokuba's world changed, quietly and completely, on the day his brother lost a game. It's hard to watch someone you love go crazy. It's not easy to follow that person, either.


Disclaimer: Yuugiou was created by Kazuki Takahashi. I wrote this fanfiction with no chance of profiting from it beyond enjoyment and no intent to harm the rights of the creator or the copyright holders.

--

The night's quiet was broken only by the creaks of the settling house. Mokuba vaguely remembered a time he'd been scared of those noises; they'd sounded like footsteps to him, and he'd thought someone was coming to get him. Now footsteps were exactly what he was hoping to hear. He sat in bed, stopwatch in hand and sheets tangled around his legs.

There it was: the quiet tramp of feet and the crackle of a walkie-talkie. Mokuba pressed the button on the stopwatch and the digital display froze at nineteen minutes, forty-eight seconds. Good.

That was the fourth time he'd done the action, so he was pretty sure that security was going to keep coming down the hallway between his and Seto's bedroom every twenty minutes. It had taken a lot of threatening before they'd been willing to change their schedule to allow it, and Mokuba had been scared they wouldn't listen to him after all. But it looked like it had worked.

Okay, then. He could relax. He could go to sleep, knowing that there were people on the lookout, and stop waiting for Seto to start screaming.

* * *

Mokuba, having finished his homework and started planning his weekend, had come up with one of the scariest thoughts ever.

Seto couldn't dance.

Well, Mokuba had never seen him try, and Seto had never been taught to dance, so he probably wasn't great at it. That meant dancing would be a challenge for him, right?

Mokuba deemed that logical, and rested his elbows on the desk, lacing his fingers together (Seto posed like that when he did his best thinking) as he moved to the next part of the puzzle.

Seto was looking for a game that could challenge him, and it meant that he and Mokuba went to a nearby arcade on Sundays when there wasn't too much work to be done. They had _Dance Dance Revolution_ at the arcade. Since Seto couldn't dance, and needed a challenge, and he was number one at almost every other game at the arcade, did that mean he would...?

At this point Mokuba's mind boggled to a near standstill, but he managed to plan a bit: if he could bring up the idea of a round of DDR with a straight face, he could suggest that Seto wear that green wig he kept in case he needed a disguise, and then...

The door opened and his thoughts went poof; Seto dancing in a green wig was a hard image to hold on to even without distractions (Mokuba decided to take a video camera with him on Sunday, in case it would be hard to believe even when he'd seen it). Mokuba turned to see who it was. Some of the staff didn't get what it meant when Seto said that this was the _private_ lounge, and Mokuba tried to make them understand before Seto found out and threw a fit.

"Big brother!" Mokuba said as Seto walked in. "You're early tod—"

His power of speech switched off as he processed what his brother looked like. He jumped up from his chair, staring, and it took a gulp to clear his throat before he could speak again. "Big brother? Are you okay?"

Seto walked slowly into the room. Lurched. His eyes were wide and staring, and he held his briefcase to his body like it was a shield or a safety blanket.

Mokuba rushed over to his brother and took his arm - he couldn't support Seto, but managed to drag him to the desk. He shoved his homework out of the way and helped Seto sit down.

All Seto's movements were slow and carefully co-ordinated, as if he had to think about them. His hands were shaking; Mokuba could tell from the way the motion made light skitter across the metal briefcase.

"Leave," Seto said. Mokuba almost fell over as he ran away from that vicious voice, that voice that was as pained and terrified as it was enraged, that voice that couldn't be his brother's.

* * *

The voice had been strange, just like the walk and the way he'd stared at nothing with wide eyes - the nightmares Seto had been having since that day were strange too. Seto never showed weakness like that. He wouldn't let himself have dreams that made him scream loud enough to bring guards running to his room, guns drawn.

Seto wouldn't talk to him that way, and he'd _really_ never let fear into his voice. Seto wouldn't ignore him, and Seto wouldn't do what he'd done today...

Mokuba felt embarrassment trickle into his cheeks, hot and red, as he remembered what had happened a few hours ago. He buried his face in a pillow, and the warmth welled up until it became anger. He was angry with Seto - at the way Seto was acting.

He shook his head violently against the pillow. He couldn't feel like that. Seto had taken care of him for so long that he had to take care of Seto in return, no matter what.

* * *

Mokuba went back within the half-hour. He'd spent the time metaphorically smacking himself on the head, when he wasn't figuring out how to make things right. He'd been acting like a moron. Seto was in trouble and he left him to deal with it alone?

The problem had to be a threat to their position in Kaiba Corp, since nothing else would affect Seto this much. Mokuba knew that it had been a nasty surprise for some members of the board to realise Seto and Mokuba wouldn't be nearly as easy to control as they'd hoped. There was a lot of undercover threatening and undermining going on, and maybe someone had found a way to get to Seto. But what could they have _done_? He looked sick...

"Big brother? I'm coming in," Mokuba said into the keyhole of the lounge door. He put the tray he carried on the floor, as it was too hard to balance on one arm, and opened the door.

Seto was sitting on the floor with his back to the side panel of the desk, briefcase open in front of him. The cards from inside the briefcase were strewn around him, spread out evenly in a rough semicircle that covered most of the floor.

Mokuba picked up the tray and walked in. The edge of the tray cut into his palms, and he tried to loosen his grip before Seto could see his whitened knuckles. He couldn't show how nervous he was. "I got you some food. And vitamins. And your laptop."

"Shut the door behind you."

Mokuba banged the door shut with his heel and took a few steps closer. "Are you okay?"

"Bring the food."

The problem couldn't be the company, or Seto would have asked for the laptop. Mokuba would have preferred for the company to be the problem. When someone got this sick this quick... "Could you clear away the cards?" Mokuba said. "I'll step on them if I come closer."

Seto said, "They're _just cards_."

Mokuba still wavered at the edge of the semicircle. Seto usually took his favourite game seriously...

"Just cards," Seto repeated. He stood up and began to walk towards Mokuba, actually stepping on his precious cards. Through Mokuba's astonishment, he was relieved to see that Seto was moving normally, without that uncoordinated uncertainty. Except ... he was taking careful steps across the carpet, light and hesitant, and looking straight ahead as he walked. It looked like he was pretending to be a firewalker ... it looked as if he was scared.

Seto went past him, and Mokuba spun around and watched him go to the window seat and sit down in the sunlight. He never sat by the window seat. "Over here," he said.

As Mokuba set the tray down between them, Seto should have given the contents an arch look and said that there was no real food on it. Mokuba would have said yeah, but they both liked chocolate parfait so they'd enjoy eating it together, and he would have kept quiet about how he thought Seto could use the endorphins in the chocolate.

Seto picked up a spoon and a glass of parfait and ate.

Mokuba swallowed his words and they all churned up inside of him. He didn't bother with the glass of parfait remaining on the tray.

Seto ate quickly, cramming the dessert into his mouth as if he couldn't get enough. By the time he'd neared the bottom of the glass there was a smear on his cheek. When there was only a little left, he took slow spoonfuls as if he concentrated on each taste. Mokuba waited until Seto had finished eating, then asked, voice plaintive and anxious in a way he'd never normally allow himself to use, "What's wrong, big brother?"

"It was the game. The ultimate game."

"Was it ... was it some kind of psycho mind game? Was it Russian Roulette or something? Big brother, what happened?"

"I lost," Seto said. Before Mokuba could do more than gape in disbelief, he added, "I died."

* * *

Mokuba sat up, listening hard. He yanked the tangled sheets off his legs, got out of bed and walked to the door. He pressed his ear against it, held his breath and stood still; but he couldn't hear anything from his brother's room across the corridor, and he crept back into bed.

He couldn't help being scared, even if security was checking coming around regularly. Seto said he'd lost and he said he'd died, but he was still walking around. If he'd really lost a game, wouldn't he do what Gozaburo had done? The windows in his bedroom were huge...

Mokuba flopped down on his bed and squeezed his eyes shut, telling himself that he was absolutely not allowed to think that way. Seto hadn't been having nightmares for three nights now ... so Mokuba's nightmares could stop too. Security was already sick of running up and down this corridor.

It was obvious that Seto wasn't going to do what Gozaburo had done. He was too excited about his new project, and he was pretty much back to normal. Except for the fact that he didn't play games or go to the arcade anymore. Or to school.

* * *

The Monday after Seto said he'd died, Mokuba found him in the front hall, dressed in his school uniform and facing the door. For a second Mokuba was overjoyed because Seto was feeling well enough to go to school. He hadn't gone since _that_ day. Then he noticed how Seto wasn't moving, and he sidled cautiously to his brother's side.

"Good morning, big brother," he ventured.

Seto made a noise of affirmation, then said, "I've changed my mind about finishing high school. It's not worth it, and I ... I have what I need..."

"Does that mean I don't have to go to school either? I agree it's worthless!" Mokuba grinned, because Seto wouldn't like it if he acted upset about the way Seto's voice was so uncertain. Besides, this was a normal situation - Seto had tried to give up school a few times since he'd taken over Kaiba Corp.

He waited for Seto to become stern and tell him the reasons he had to go to school, until the point where Mokuba told him that the reasons applied to him, too. Then Seto would skip school anyway so he could sulk, but he'd go the next day. As long as he went more often than not it was okay. It would be bad for Kaiba Corp's image to be headed by a dropout.

Seto said, "Everyone there is crazy."

Mokuba frowned; Seto had once told him that his schoolmates were too average to take notice of. But it didn't matter. "Domino is full of weirdoes. You should just ignore them."

"There's this one. Yuugi. Has multiple personality disorder, or something. He really annoys me."

Seto knew someone's name? He cared enough to call someone by name?

Mokuba shifted anxiously, then tried to hide that he had. "Sue the guy for harassment or something. I bet you could get him kicked out of school!"

Seto's hands twitched with the automatic uncontrollability of malfunctioning gears, and his briefcase struck the carpet with a muted _fump_. Mokuba felt off-balance, a subconscious part of him waiting for the metal to make a clatter on the floor, and another part of him afraid because Seto was staring at him as if he'd never seen anything like him before.

"Offensive action. A strike back," Seto said, the words tumbling out like an idea that he was trying to convince himself of. He swallowed hard enough for Mokuba to see his Adam's apple bob, and his next words were slow and carefully tested: "A rematch."

His open mouth edged upwards at the corners. He turned and walked out of the hall, starting to run halfway through.

* * *

Seto hadn't talked to Mokuba for days after that - after today's freak out, it was probably going to be the same thing for a while.

Mokuba sighed and put one arm over his eyes. Well, if he'd handled it before he could do it again. He just hoped Seto wasn't going to talk to the new _butler_ all the time again. It had hurt the first time - that guy was a freak. Mokuba hadn't understood why Seto had hired him at all.

He hadn't been able to understand why those talks had made Seto start looking happier, either. But now ... he had some ideas.

* * *

Mokuba worked harder - at Kaiba Corp, school, games, whatever. His work had always been good, because Seto tended to send it back when it wasn't up to scratch, but now he was achieving his highest scores ever, and his productivity was increasing steadily.

It wasn't the most subtle way of getting his brother's attention, but it worked. One afternoon, going over proposals from the R&D people in his office (which he'd barely used before. Seto had let him work at an extra desk in the C.E.O.'s office), he got a memo.

Consultation at 14:00 - Seto.

Seto glanced up when Mokuba opened the door and immediately started gathering sheets of paper from the stacks on his desk. "Take a look at these," he said, as naturally as if they'd been speaking all day. "See if this will appeal to those of your age group."

Mokuba used his most businesslike voice when he asked, "Can I look them over in here?"

"Of course." Seto was already pulling his own paperwork closer, eyes darting back and forth as he scanned and reorganised the papers. Mokuba recognised this distracted efficiency; Seto's brain was working like an engine on one problem, and everything that wasn't related to it was dealt with by the fringes of his mind.

He wondered what it was that had Seto so excited, but mostly he was happy. Seto hated to have people around him when he was this obviously invested in something, but he was letting Mokuba stay. He hadn't just remembered that Mokuba could be useful to him, but also that they worked best together.

The desk that had been brought in for Mokuba was still in the corner of the office. He slid into it and resisted the urge to breathe out with relief. Getting a hold of himself, he turned his attention to the papers he held - oops. He should have washed his hands. Mokuba spent a few minutes trying to unsmudge the paper before he even looked at what was written on it. When he caught a few words in a glance, he froze, and when he skimmed a few paragraphs, he couldn't stop himself from gasping out a laugh of shock and joy.

"It's that bad?" Seto asked, frowning. "I'll have to--" 

"No, it's great!" Mokuba said. "But this is about Kaiba Land! We're really building Kaiba Land?"

"It's about time we got around to it." Seto looked back down to his work, and Mokuba stared at the crown of his head as he began to realise that everything was fine.

Seto must have won that rematch he'd talked about. He must have enjoyed it and remembered that it was okay to have fun with games. Maybe he was finally over the chess match that had changed their lives. And he was putting energy into the theme park they'd promised to build together, and ... everything was fine.

Mokuba took a deep breath, let it out, and blinked fast. Then he turned to his paperwork too.

They planned the theme park from the outside in. The building would be fifty stories, and there would be a fountain out front and some space for statues; they could decide what later. "Really cool ones!" Mokuba said. "Nothing boring like a giant company logo!" He had to be careful about things like that; Seto liked putting 'KC' on everything imaginable. 

They considered how to divide the games; maybe the roller coaster could go through several levels; maybe the games on each floor should have themes; maybe a certain collective score would have to be attained on each floor before access was granted to the next.

"That's an interesting idea," Seto said. "If I tweak it, it could..." And he muttered something that sounded like 'Yuugi'.

Seto did that a lot. It bothered Mokuba, so he distracted Seto with work. There was enough of it that he could always make it seem natural; they delegated, of course, but Kaiba Land was their pet project and they had to go over every aspect. They went ever deeper into the plans, deciding on the games they'd have. Mokuba had been given a strange look for insisting on _Dance Dance Revolution_, but since Seto was better, he'd start playing games again soon, and he'd still want to be best at everything...

They spiralled in towards the deepest levels. Mokuba approved of the idea of secret tunnels that led to a special theme park, because it would totally rock to stumble into something like that and people would go nuts about it. But by then Seto was talking aloud about Yuugi Mutou, wondering how he'd like the special theme park. Seto wondered if he should make sure that things in the special part were low since Yuugi was short, and thought about making sure there wasn't stuff that Yuugi's wild hair could get caught in. He planned the theme park around Yuugi's tendency to go everywhere with his friends in the same way he planned the budget around the special wiring needed for 3-D projection programmes.

Mokuba turned quiet in the later stages of the planning, sitting still and listening as Seto talked about how he'd met Yuugi, how he'd been defeated by him, how he was going to kill him.

This was not his brother. Not their dream.

"Big brother, you can't..."

Seto's words dried up like water from a shut-off tap. He looked at Mokuba, assessed him, and kicked him out of the office.

Security guards were waiting by the secretary's desk to kick him out of the _building_.

* * *

Mokuba touched the tender spots on his arms where the men had held him. He could tell that he was going to get bruises, and thinking back, that surprised him. The men had been careful, and they'd looked kind of sorry for him. Except for the one who'd laughed.

Now he could almost understand what Seto wanted to do to Yuugi Mutou.

"Seto..." Mokuba sighed. He thought about the way his brother had smiled once and thought about the way the smile had changed. "This is crazy."

He couldn't imagine saying the words to his brother. The thought of how Seto's anger scared him less than it should have, but he could imagine a look of pain on Seto's face in the second before anger came, and it made his stomach roll. He shook his head to himself. He wouldn't betray his brother like that.

He had to help, not hurt. And it was when they started planning the special theme park three days ago that Seto's nightmares had stopped, so obviously this plan was making Seto get better. Mokuba knew he'd have to keep helping Seto finish the theme park.

Maybe he could make a few plans to get Yuugi too. If that guy was the cause of everything that had happened over the past couple of weeks between Seto and Mokuba - and even if he had only been the cause of what had happened today - then Yuugi deserved everything he could get for what he'd done to them.

* * *

Later that night, security woke Mokuba up; he was screaming again.


End file.
